


A Little Misunderstanding

by Aytheria



Series: Misunderstandings 'Verse [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Genre: Assumptions are bad, But funny, Gen, Harry is a bit of a BAMF, Harry's Saving People Thing, Pre-Apocalypse, Realm Hopping, The Search for Sirius!, Veil of Death, kind of EWE, misunderstandings galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 10:19:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3205676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aytheria/pseuds/Aytheria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“...it’s not in every world you get asked if you’re a pagan god. He was almost flattered ... but with two guns pointed at him, it was hardly a laughing matter anymore.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Misunderstanding

**Author's Note:**

> So, this happened. Everyone else is doing it, so I figured...why the hell not? So here’s my (slightly crackish) take on it. I’ve left it open for potential sequels if I’m ever in the mood. I’ve also left it open for a multi-fandom crossover series of interconnected dimension travelling mis-adventures. For now, we’ll start with Supernatural.
> 
> (Also, first post on Ao3 after lurking and lurking for years...so, let's test this baby out!)

 

Harry Potter had long since resigned himself to one simple fact in life: that no matter where he went or what he did, people were always going to misunderstand him - assume things that weren’t true. Whether it be intentionally, like Rita Skeeter’s fallacious news articles about the state of his sanity as well as his apparently very interesting love life; or simply that no one ever listened to his explanations properly and bullheadedly drew their own conclusions - for example, no matter how many times he says he didn’t do something, naturally everyone thinks he did. 

And then there were the times when whole societies placed their burdens upon him and simply _assumed_ he would gratefully carry them and save them from a nightmare of their own making.

Of course, his life up until the defeat of Voldemort had actually been relatively free of misunderstandings and false assumptions in comparison to what had been occurring lately. Ever since Hermione had unravelled the mystery of the Veil of Death (bless her ridiculous thirst for knowledge and complete unrestricted access to any and all research material), Harry had been living nothing _but_ assumptions. 

After all, when one becomes an inter-dimensional traveller, it generally goes that no one actually believes you and simply assumes you’re crazy - or worse. There was that time he’d been accosted and called a death eater and nearly sent to Azkaban (he’d made a hasty retreat from that world), but there’d also been the time he’d chanced upon his blissful life married to _Draco Malfoy_ of all people (that world had been particularly scarring). 

That was only the beginning. Suddenly he found himself in lands that didn’t even contain the world he’d come to know - like that world where everyone had weird genetic mutations and the muggle government (which happened to be the _only_ government) was desperately trying to stamp them out, or what about the world where everyone used some weird internal magic to run around at ridiculously enhanced speeds and fight each other using insane martial arts? Or better yet, the one where magic wasn’t so much a word and a wand wave, but consisted of a bunch of nonsensical rhyming and the copious use of natural herbs and crystals.

In one he’d been assumed a ‘mutant’, in another a ‘ninja’. One time he got called a ‘witch’, and Harry had frantically checked his chest and groped about between his legs just to reassure himself that he was still male and had not, in fact, mysteriously changed genders. 

And no matter how many times he told each new world that he was a ‘wizard’ simply passing through (and no thank you, he really didn’t want to get involved in whatever war was currently raging, and also, he wasn’t sent to assassinate anyone and _no,_ he really wasn’t the enemy in disguise), no one ever seemed to listen.  

Naturally, the reason he’d been shucked from roughly twenty worlds and counting so far was because none were the one Sirius Black had ended up in. So once again, Harry had returned to Hermione, intent upon visiting a new world, and had somehow found himself in this particular situation, facing two rather well-built men with guns across a clearing, his hands raised peacefully, and not sure whether to laugh or cry. 

Because while Harry had long given up trying to correct assumptions and now simply went with the flow, this time really had to be the most...unusual. 

After all, it’s not in every world you get asked if you’re a pagan god. He was almost flattered. 

Or, he would have been if being some sort of pagan god didn’t seem to be a terribly good thing - rather, with two guns pointed at him, it was hardly a laughing matter anymore. 

And then the guns drooped and the two men before him scowled heavily at him, but otherwise did nothing. 

At least, nothing further than they’d already done. He’d already been cursed at in Latin, had water thrown all over him for no apparent reason, had salt flicked in his face (just to add insult to injury), and had barely managed to avoid getting impaled on what appeared to be an old-fashioned silver butter knife. Instead the knife had nicked him, and rather than using that to their advantage, the tall, young man holding the knife had simply frowned, stared for a few moments, then put it away. 

And all because Harry had thought no one would notice if he redecorated his motel room a bit. It’s not like anyone but the person renting the room was supposed to see inside - especially as he’d hung the _Do Not Disturb_ sign on the door knob outside - and he would have reverted everything to its original state before he left. And how in Merlin’s name was he supposed to know he was being stalked by gun and salt toting muggles and that when they hadn’t seen him return to his room in the conventional way (read: he’d apparated), he’d had the door busted down on him right as he was about to partake of some chocolate biscuits and a nice cup of tea. 

Oh, and one couldn’t forget the bowl of sherbet lemons - Albus was such a bad influence on him, even after death. Only Albus Dumbledore could be as insistent upon sherbet lemons when he no longer existed as when he had been alive. His ever-filling bowl of sweets had been gifted to the last Potter with much pomp and circumstance (much to Snape’s portrait’s horror). 

It was in that state, biscuit half-eaten and cup of tea poised at his mouth, that the door had swung open and two men holding guns had barged in. 

That was when the weird stuff started happening - like the water and the salt and the latin chanting and the silver knife. So now, in a small wooded clearing just behind the motel, Harry faced off against these two interlopers and seriously wondered if they were all right in the head. 

Because really, what on earth would his chocolate biscuits and sherbet lemons have to do with anything?

“I’m telling you, Dean,” argued the slightly taller and younger looking one of the two, as he kept half a wary eye on Harry, “the way the room was completely remodelled and the _sweets_ \- we’re dealing with a Trickster.” 

Harry wondered what kind of pranking could possibly warrant attempted murder. 

“Dude, we only know one Trickster, and that ain’t him,” replied the one named ‘Dean.’

The younger one began to tick points off on the hand not holding a gun aimed in Harry’s unfortunate direction. “No reaction to the Holy Water, salt, or Exorcism-”

And it was about here Harry began to become slightly amused. Exorcism? Did they think he was a ghost? 

“-or the silver. That’s all the usual tests. We both know the only thing that can kill a Trickster is…” he cut off suddenly and shot Harry a quick look before eying Dean significantly. 

“Right,” replied Dean, having apparently understood the hidden message. “But not every evil spook reacts to those tests, just the more common fuglies.”

“Which is _why_ ,” said the other, unnaturally tall man, “I’m bringing up the sweets. Tricksters have a sweet tooth, remember? And they can warp reality and that room looked pretty warped to me.”

Harry was beginning to suspect that a ‘trickster’ wasn’t so much as a person who played pranks, but rather a _thing_ that played pranks - like a Poltergeist. 

“We only know one Trickster,” mumbled Dean, trailing off. He then shot Harry an assessing look, gun still steadfastly fixed in position. “Alright,” he declared, “which one are you? Native American? Norse? Um…” he trailed off again, thinking. 

“Dude, you can only think of two?” 

“Shut up, nerd. Okay, since you’re pale and pasty and look nowhere near Native American, I’m going to go with Loki, Norse god of chaos.”

And it was about then that the guns dropped and the younger of the two turned to his partner and stared at him disbelievingly. “Dean, Loki hasn’t shown up in centuries and besides, the myths say he was bound and tortured for the rest of his life until Ragnarok which is when he is supposed to die.”

“Okay then, brainiac boy, if you’re so smart, why don’t you tell me which one he is then!” snapped Dean in irritation, arms crossing over his chest. 

“Dean, there are several myths dealing with Tricksters and even then that’s just the most famous of them, he could be anyone!” the other snapped back. 

More amused now that he understood they thought he couldn’t be killed by conventional means (because apparently he was some sort of god-like spirit), and also because they were bickering like Ron and Ginny sometimes did and had seemly forgotten his existence, he decided to make his presence known. He dropped his hands and cleared his throat as he did so, hoping they wouldn’t startle, then ended his movement with a sharp twist and an instinctive apparition just before the responding bullet could hit his shoulder. 

So maybe they still remembered he was there, he decided as he reappeared not five feet from where he had been previously standing and frowned at the small hole blown into the trunk of the tree unfortunate enough to get in the way of its trajectory. 

“That wasn’t nice,” was the first thing he could think to say, which, on the Harry Potter scale of The Worst Kinds Of Situations To Be In, might have even been a bit of an exaggeration. Somehow, a crazy Bellatrix Lestrange intent on turning your skin inside out and boiling your blood was a lot more worrisome than a single muggle bullet. 

“Dude, he has a British accent!” exclaimed Dean, seemingly impressed by this. 

“Dean, focus!”

“Um…” interjected Harry, severely at a loss for words. 

Two sets of eyes turned to stare at him coldly and Harry nearly sighed out loud. Honestly, how did he get himself into these situations in the first place? 

“Okay,” said Harry, determined to at least clear one thing up, “what exactly, may I ask, warrants the two of you attempting to kill me?” 

The two men blinked before the elder one, Dean, scoffed and glared at him furiously. If looks could kill… “Don’t act innocent, you monster. We know about the murders you’ve been committing,” he snarled. 

“Five people in the past three weeks,” added the younger one.

Harry finally did groan. Yes, this was perhaps the biggest misunderstanding he’d ever had. At least the other times he could almost see why people would misunderstand circumstances...but how on earth could these two men be pinning murders on him when he’d only been in the country less than twelve hours - this world less than twenty-four yet! 

“Right,” he sighed, “I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding here,” which was clearly the understatement of the century, “because I’ve only just arrived here, so there’s no way I could have killed anyone. And for that matter, why would I? I’m not the one you’re looking for, so-” he waved a hand in the direction of the motel, “if we could just part amicably and be on our separate ways, I’d appreciate it.” 

“You’re a Trickster,” said the younger man dryly, “so why should we believe anything you say?” 

Dean frowned. “I dunno, Sammy, you have to admit, the murders don’t really have the mark of a Trickster.”

The newly dubbed ‘Sammy’ frowned as well and eyed Harry skeptically, “Yes, but…”

“It could just be coincidence he happened to show up.”

“Exactly,” Harry pointed out, pleased. 

“So, what? We just gonna let him go?” cried Sammy. 

“We can’t exactly kill him,” Dean pointed out dryly. 

“True,” muttered Sammy, hand clenching around his gun and jaw clenched. “But those people…”

“Look,” said Harry, “I’m sorry about the people who died, really I am, but I’ve got nothing to do with it, so I’ll just be leaving now, and if you could kindly agree not to break down my door again, that would be nice? I’m leaving town soon anyway.”

There. Now, hopefully he could get back to his probably now cold tea and biscuits. 

Sammy drew his eyebrows together and frowned heavily - Harry was reminded distinctly of a kicked puppy. “No. We can’t. Look, maybe you don’t have anything to do with _these_ particular murders, but you sure as hell are responsible for others.”

Harry blinked. He wondered if they were just making some scarily accurate assumptions, or if they really did know about all the Death Eaters he’d cut down. Death Eaters, he might add, that had come hunting him for revenge, so what was he supposed to do? Stand there and let them hit him with curses? He pursed his lips with a frown. “Now see here-” he began.

“Sam, you idiot! What the hell can we even do right now?” exclaimed Dean, drowning out Harry’s words. “He ain’t killing now, so we’re just gonna hafta let him go this time. I’m sure we’ll run into him again and next time we’ll be more prepared.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Harry cut in with a huff. “I said I’m leaving soon, as in you’re never going to see me again.”

“Shut up,” snapped Sam and Harry’s eyebrows shot up. “Dean, goddamnit, I can’t in good conscience let him go!”

Dean leaned in closely to his partner and hissed something in his ear that Harry had to really strain to pick up. “God damn _you,_ Sam, we aren’t equipped to deal with him right now and he may be acting friendly now, but if we piss it off, we’re dead. I’d rather live to fight another day than watch you die - _again_.”

Now Harry’s eyebrows had practically climbed off his head in their astonishment. He peered closely at the one called Sam and thought he looked remarkably healthy and coherent for an Inferi. Perhaps Dean had been exaggerating a bit. Still, the guy was smart - Harry may be a friendly guy, but after the shit he’d had to deal with, he’d learned that when push came to shove, if you wanted to survive, you had to be the last man standing. That ninja-what’s-his-name had learned that the hard way. 

Sam’s shoulders slumped and he gave Harry the evil eye. Dean eyed him too, as if he were trying to wordlessly and wandlessly cast the Killing Curse with willpower alone. 

“So we’re just going to go our separate ways?” Harry clarified with relief. 

“Yes,” agreed Dean through gritted teeth. 

“So we’re all just going to go our merry, separate ways and no one has to get hurt,” Harry repeated with an edge to his voice, gaze on Sam.

“If you so much as even _think_ about killing anyone-” Sam started to threaten.

Dean clamped a hand around Sam’s arm and yanked him off balance, cutting him off. “What my brother _means_ to say is, yes, that sounds about right. So, see you around. Wouldn’t wanna be ya when we next do.” 

Harry blinked and watched who was apparently the elder of two brothers (not gay partners, which was a relief - he’d had far too many bad experiences with _that_ particular kettle of fish) drag the younger back towards the motel. 

_Well,_ though Harry, _that went well._  

All considered, though, he’d escaped with all his limbs attached and a clean bill of mental health, which was pretty good when taking into account his track record. Not to mention the opposite party had also walked away unscathed, which was a rare occurrence. All in all, not one of the worst encounters he’d had, even if it ranked up there as one of the strangest. 

With a sigh, he apparated silently back into his room. The place was a mess - the table upturned, his biscuits all over the floor, and his chair broken. Not to mention there was salt everywhere and a wet patch on the carpet. 

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, pulling out his wand to repair the damage. A few quick _reparo_ s took care of most of the damage and a silent flick of his second wand, the Elder Wand, conjured a new tea set and plate of biscuits. The dish of lemon drops was fortunately unharmed and he popped a sticky sweet into his mouth with relish as he sat down in his new squashy armchair. He eyed the red and gold walls and large, four-poster bed with velvet hangings and thought about how his little alterations had gotten him into this mess in the first place. He was loath to change them back though, the motel accommodations being far from adequate. 

“Hermione would tell me I had it coming,” he mused out loud. 

It was true, he supposed. He didn’t know if it was a quirk of the Elder Wand to warp its owners until they were all as barmy as the last, or whether he was just unconsciously honouring his dead Headmaster by adopting some of his more eccentric habits, but either way he’d picked up some telling traits.

He took a sip of his tea around the lemon drop in his mouth, admiring the mix of lemony, sugary goodness and slightly bitter taste of tea. He swirled the rest of it in his cup thoughtfully. 

What to do now? He wondered. Sirius didn’t seem to be in this world at all. No matter how many Point Me spells and tracking spells he used they turned up nothing. He’d tried them on different parts of the globe too, just in case. 

He tilted his head up and stared at the stucco ceiling with a heavy sigh. “Where are you Sirius?” His lips quirked. “You’d be loving all these adventures, I’m sure.”

He finished his tea and got out his notebook. He liked to write down an account of each world he visited, just to keep record. Hermione told him all good researchers kept a research journal and she couldn’t in good conscience let him go galavanting off by himself without being properly equipped. Sometimes Harry wondered if she shouldn’t have been in Ravenclaw. 

He was just dotting his last i’s and crossing his last t’s when he was interrupted by a muffled thump from the wall next to him. Harry paused with ink dripping over the parchment and tilted his head in curiosity. 

There it was again - a muffled thump and...was that yelling?

Knowing he was succumbing to one of his worst vices - his ‘saving people thing’ as Hermione liked to call it - Harry abandoned his notebook and biscuits and went to press his ear against the horrible flowery wallpaper. 

_Crash! Bang!_ Followed by a muffled shout, and then more muffled shouting that sounded short, clipped, and very much like someone was cursing up a storm in the room next door. 

Well, clearly something was wrong. Either that or the people next door enjoyed being kinky. But something, an instinct Harry had long ago learned never to ignore, was nagging at him, telling him the situation wasn’t that simple. Something was wrong - people were in danger. So with a self-suffering sigh, he pulled the Elder Wand from its holster and strolled to the door. 

“Hold your horses,” he muttered, “I’m coming, I’m coming.” 

He opened his door quietly and walked the short distance to next door. He briefly considered knocking, but when he heard the swearing - more clearly this time - he decided that would be a bit silly. Then again, it was always polite to knock. 

So Harry rapped once on the door, announced in a clear voice, “I’m coming in!”, and then used a well placed _Alohamora_ on the door lock. The door swung open with a click, which was lost in the ensuing chaos of cussing and breaking furniture. 

Harry was impressed by the state of the room when he entered - the man currently tearing it apart angrily (while the other writhed on the floor clawing at his throat) had done quite a thorough job of destroying it. Harry would have been hard put to do better - and he had the advantage of magic. 

Then he recognised the men in question and sighed. This was going to get ugly. 

He shut the door behind him, keeping a spell on the tip of his tongue, just in case trigger-happy Dean got a little too hostile, and asked, “What’s going on?”

Dean froze for a moment in his frantic search for...something...and gaped at him. “What the fuck are you doing in here?” he spluttered.

“You are next door to me,” Harry pointed out reasonably. “Did you expect me to just ignore the noise?” He gestured at Sam, who looked quite sorry for himself with bloody scratches gouging his skin. “Think maybe you should restrain him or something?”

Dean made a distressed noise in the back of his throat. “It’s the fucking hex bag!” he snarled, returning to ripping apart the room. “Where can it be? Goddamnit, where is it! It’s killing him!”

Harry wasn’t entirely sure what a hex bag was, but it sounded as nasty as the name implied, and if it was the reason for Sam trying to rip his own throat out, he supposed he ought to destroy the thing. 

“ _Accio_ hex bag,” he said clearly, wand twitching minutely at his side. To both his and Dean’s surprise, a small brown drawstring bag came bursting out of the wall. 

“What the hell!” exclaimed Dean.

Harry caught the bag and held it up. “I take it this is a hex bag.”

“No shit!” snarled Dean, eying him warily. He stood up from his half crouch and edged forward, right hand going for the small of his back and most likely a weapon. “Now, just...hand it over and nobody has to get hurt.”

“I could just destroy it,” Harry offered, eying the other man warily in turn. 

Dean glanced at his moaning, screaming brother and Harry saw the pain in his expression. He understood that pain. Without another word, he lit the bag on fire, reducing it to ash in his palm within seconds. And like magic, Sam collapsed, limp and bloodied hands falling from his neck. Dean didn’t even stop to thank him, he was already grabbing at his brother, inspecting the cuts.

“Jesus Sammy, you really did a number on yourself, dude,” he joked weakly.

“J-jerk,” coughed Sam, spitting up some blood. “Ugh.”

“You’ll be fine, Sam. We’ve had worse.” Dean clapped his brother carefully on the shoulder as he helped him up into a sitting position. 

Watching the two, Harry was reminded of himself and his friends. They had been like familyand during the war that had really shone through. Seeing the brothers now, he realised that they must lead eerily similar lives - it was clear Sam and Dean, while muggles, were fighting a power with the odds stacked against them...just like Harry had. 

So with another self-suffering sigh, and wondering why he got himself into these situations, Harry offered, “I can heal him if you like.”

Another one of Hermione’s dimension hopping rules, and one Harry actually agreed with this time, was that he always carried a full arsenal of supplies. They had come in handy quite a lot, all considered, and he always stocked up again every time he returned to his world. Seeing as he had yet to use any of his potions this time around, he had a full supply of salves and pain relievers. 

“We don’t trust spooks,” growled Dean, eying him like he was about to spontaneously combust any second. 

Harry rolled his eyes. He’d gathered that already. “Hey,” he said peacefully, holding up his empty hands, wand already back up his sleeve, “I just offered. He definitely needs medical attention, and I can give it to him easy.”

“Why would you help us?” asked Dean and the way he said it made Harry think he was clearly missing something here. Like they were enemies on opposite sides of the battle field. 

Harry shrugged. “Honestly? I’ve got a bleeding heart and you remind me of myself.” He snorted self-deprecatingly. “Look, take it or leave it, the choice is yours.”

Sam chose that moment to moan dramatically in pain. Dean gripped his brother hard, face pinched. “What would you do?”

Harry grinned. He reached into the bottomless bag he always carried hooked to his belt (another gift courtesy of Hermione) and summoned a basic healing salve. He unscrewed the lid and showed them the unassuming light blue paste. “Nothing special, just some salve.” He screwed the lid back on and tossed in an underhand throw to a startled Dean. The man caught it out of reflex and stared at it like it was going to sprout teeth and claws and bite him.

“This ain’t some trick is it? I know your kind, you like to do that. It won’t turn him into a girl or something, will it?” 

Both Sam and Harry gave Dean incredulous looks. 

“V-very fun-ny,” rasped Sam darkly. 

Harry shook his head in wonder. These were a right pair of muggles - the strangest he’d ever met, and that was saying something. “If I wanted to turn him into a girl, I wouldn’t use a salve to do it,” Harry informed them in amusement. 

In fact, he wondered absently, how would one go about that? Transfiguration? A Potion? 

Transfiguration for something less permanent, he mused, and perhaps a potion for something a little more hard to reverse. Was there even such a potion? What man in his right mind would want to be a girl?

Oh, right, transvestites. Harry rubbed his head in bemusement. 

Dean was sniffing the creme and muttering under his breath. Sam slumped exhausted against the torn mattress, blood still staining the corner of his mouth and down his neck. 

Harry took a second to look around the room and was yet again impressed by the amount of damage that could be done by a single muggle in less than a few minutes. He doubted the motel owner would quite see it that way. Maybe he should repair a few things, save everyone some grief. He was good at repairing things, as he broke them just as often. 

While Dean and Sam were distracted with poking at the salve with drawn guns (what a gun would do against a pot of salve, Harry would never know), Harry set about silently casting _reparo_ s on the broken furniture, torn sheets, ripped mattress, and numerous other disasters. 

There was a cry of, “Holy shit! It fucking works!” from Dean a minute later when Harry was on the other side of the room inspecting the wallpaper. He wasn’t sure if a _reparo_ would do much good considering the wallpaper was already as ugly as sin. He turned at the sound of the shout in time to watch Sam climb to his feet and shake himself out. 

“Damn,” he said, “I feel fine.”

“You look fine,” replied Dean. 

“You can keep the salve,” Harry offered magnanimously, thinking he was being rather overly generous considering these two had sworn to hunt him down and kill him at some point. “I’m leaving soon so I won’t need it.” No doubt Hermione would already have a fresh batch by the time he got back. 

“What is this, special god healing mojo?” asked Dean sceptically.

“It’s a healing salve, yes,” responded Harry dryly. 

That’s when the brothers both noticed the state of the room. 

“What the hell, man!” 

“Did you do this?” asked Sam, choosing to directly confront Harry instead of whirling around frantically on the spot exclaiming obscenities like his brother. 

Harry nodded. “Didn’t think the motel owner would be too happy with how you destroyed his room.” Then he wondered if the owner might be a woman. “Or her.” He paused and glanced around at the messy, but thankfully no longer broken, room. “I have to commend you on how thoroughly you ripped it apart in so little time with only your hands.”

“You would,” sneered Sam sourly. 

Harry raised an eyebrow. What was that supposed to mean? He didn’t think he’d ever met two more ungrateful men! Well, perhaps...there was that time he’d been accused of being a Death Eater even after he’d saved that witch from...well. He didn’t like to talk about that instance. “I can see where I’m not wanted,” he said dryly, “so I’ll just be leaving now. Good luck with your murder hunt.” He spun on his heels to head for the door, but stopped before either of the brothers could protest and added, “You might want to look into vengeful witches or wizards. That hex bag seems like the kind of thing a Slyth-well, never mind.” He shook his head, thinking of the number of Slytherin classmates who would have killed to slip one of those ‘hex bags’ into his robe pocket in the halls. Voldemort would have had a field day with them. 

“Now wait just a damn minute,” Dean snapped as Harry reached for the door. Harry paused, contemplating the merits of simply leaving, or staying to hear what new crime he was being accused of now. Unfortunately, he hesitated too long and Dean steamrolled ahead, “You expect us to think you had nothing to do with this when you come out with something like that?”

Harry rolled his eyes. Merlin’s balls, these two were like a dog with a bone. He turned back around, holding up his hand in pledge mockingly. “I solemnly swear I had nothing to do with this. I’m just passing through.” 

“Just passing through my ass,” Dean snarked in a remarkably accurate impression of a bitchy Draco Malfoy. It was really quite something. 

Harry peered at him in fascination. “Huh,” he said, amused. 

Sam gave a few more unnecessary coughs before elucidating. “You expect us to believe that you _happen_ to show up in the next room right as we’re hunting what _appears_ to be witches and then just _happen_ to burst in at the right time to save me and then just _happen_ to have a powerful healing salve on you…” he trailed off with a frown. 

“Yeees,” Harry drawled with enough bile to make Snape proud. “Precisely. Since I am obviously behind these murders it makes sense that I would set up base right next door to the people trying to stop me. It also makes perfect sense that I would rescue them from certain death, oh, and offer to heal them as well, because that’s normally how I go about treating my adversaries. Don’t you know? It’s all the rage these days.”

Dean looked impressed. “Damn. If you weren’t a supernatural murdering psycho, I’d probably like you.”

Harry actually growled. Oh that was it! He stalked out the door before they could say another word and slammed it in a satisfyingly loud way. The whole frame rattled and he felt a tad better. 

_Right, time to split._ There was no way he was hanging around this world any longer now that he’d done his good (and under-appreciated!) deed for the day. Sidling back into his room, he flicked the Elder Wand negligently, watching as the room warped back to its previous state via one very powerful _Finite_ spell. He admired his wand for a moment, as he sometimes did, and wondered once more whether or not he really had the right to be wielding such a powerful object. Then again, it had saved his ass so many times any Dumbledore-ish behaviour it induced was probably worth it. 

Besides, he’d tried getting rid of it once, but the damn thing had reappeared in his pocket when he wasn’t looking. 

“Don’t think I don’t know how secretly unfaithful you are. You don’t fool me,” he told it. He then contemplated that he might, in fact, be going just a little barmy. But that was okay. All the good ones were, right? “Alright, old chap, time to say hasta la vista to this world!” 

There was a very unsubtle cough from the door he could have sworn he’d closed behind him. Harry froze in the action of reaching for his compass and heaved a great sigh. He spun on his heel to face the two sceptical, yet slightly bemused looking men darkening his doorstep. “Yes?”

“Hey, crazy’s cool, man,” said Dean with his hands raised in surrender. “We don’t judge.”

Harry was certain he was developing a twitch in his temple that was solely reserved for the antics of idiotic, persistent muggles. 

“What my brother is _trying_ to say,” interrupted Sam, before things could get hairy, “is that we’re sorry for being ungrateful and accusing you of murdering _this_ particular batch of people,” he paused as if considering whether or not that had sounded appropriately apologetic. Harry could have happily informed him to go take a hike. “And well, since you seem to be in a giving mood, I don’t suppose you’d mind terribly pointing us in the right direction?”

Dean muttered something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like, “Goddamn freakin’ _witches_.”

Harry stared blankly for a moment or two, weighing his options. On one hand, he really could just apparate out right now and save himself a whole lot of grief...but on the other hand…

_Where’s your sense of adventure?_ whispered that traitorous little part of him that was responsible for getting him into more scraps than he could count. _Come on, aren’t you just the slightest bit curious about this world? If it gets out of hand, you can always just leave._

_Shut up,_ Harry thought, then, _I am totally going to regret this._ He was also going to ask Hermione to do a diagnostic scan when he returned, to check for recent mental trauma due to excessive head injuries. It was the only explanation for this insanity, really. 

He sighed a great, heaving, I’m-being-terribly-put-upon-but-I’ll-help-you-anyway sigh and asked, “What, exactly, did you have in mind?”

Sam and Dean perked up, exchanging relieved looks. “Oh, not much,” said Dean with a patented Malfoy smirk, “just find the witches for us, we’ll go in, bam bam bam!” He mimed shooting with his finger, which Harry suspected with a bit of horrified realisation was not a euphemism. “Problem solved.”

“You’re going to kill these witches?” he said sceptically. 

“Of course we are,” said Sam, like it was the most obvious solution in the world. “What else can you do? They’re murdering bitches who’ve made contracts with demons, so we’re going to send them down to meet their masters,” he finished with an undertone of sadistic glee. 

_Ho, boy,_ thought Harry. _It’s worse than I thought._ “Alright, chaps, I know this is going to be hard to swallow...but there’s no such thing as demons. And witches don’t really make deals with the Devil. Witches and wizards are born with magic and are not inherently evil.” He began the mental countdown in his head: five, four, three, two-

“Bull!” Dean exploded. “What the fuck kind of Trickster are you, thinking we’ll believe that crap?”

Sam put a restraining hand on his brother’s shoulder, studying Harry’s ‘Do I look like I’m kidding?’ expression with a puzzled crease of his eyebrows. “Wait a minute, Dean.” He turned to Harry. “You’re not being serious, are you? Surely you _do_ know about demons...and the Apocalypse? I mean, dude, it’s kind of obvious, the demons are popping out of the woodwork all over the place.”

Harry sighed. He had to hand it to the religious nutjobs. They sure took crazy to a whole new level of delusion. “Apocalypse?” He moseyed over to the window and pulled back the curtains,pretending to search the sky. “Looks pretty un-apocalyptic out there to me.”

Dean began to wave his arms about, gesticulating violently. “Are you freaking serious, you crazy spook? It’s like freakin’ Apocalypse Now out there! Have you been living in a cave or something?”

Harry dropped the curtain and actually started to consider that maybe the boys weren’t entirely crazy. Maybe this world really _was_ ending in a fiery explosion of doom. They otherwise seemed to be fairly serious and down-to-earth and hardly the joking type. In that case…

“I told you I was just passing through, didn’t I? And that I haven’t been here for long? I’ll be leaving soon, so if you really are dealing with some kind of Apocalypse, well, good luck with that I guess, but I won’t be sticking around for it.” Definitely not. Hermione would be interested to hear about this one though. Between stupid spell chanting wiccan herblore and murderous witches conscripted by demons, the demons definitely took the biscuit. Thoughtfully, he pulled out his journal and flipped to the last ink-scrawled page. He summoned a fresh pot of ink and a quill, to the surprised exclamation of, “You’ve got to be kidding me, it’s like he’s living in the Dark Ages!” and jotted down a note about Apocalypses, demons and evil Devil witches. 

“Hey.” Sam tried to get his attention. “No offence, but how exactly do you expect to be able to avoid _the_ end of the world? It’s kind of...you know, global.”

Harry spelled the ink dry and snapped his journal shut. “Well, I won’t be sticking around on a ‘global’ scale, so I doubt that will be a problem.” He decided to throw them a bone, just because he was feeling generous. “In fact, I won’t really be sticking around on a dimensional scale, really. Like I said, just passing through.” He gave them his patented Potter grin. According to Ginny, it was quirky and cute and very mischievous, but he only had her word on that, so he might have only ended up appearing slightly deranged. 

Nevertheless, the astonished gaping expressions on Sam and Dean’s faces were well worth it. Brilliant! As a matter of fact, it looked like hell really was about to freeze over, because never once in any of the worlds had anyone actually believed him when he said he was just passing through. For the first ones to do so to be sort-of-muggles? How ironic was that!

“Dimensional?” Sam parroted him. “Like, as in another dimension of Earth?”

“Precisely!” Harry beamed. “The amount of potential worlds out there are endless, you know! Can’t say this one’s the most interesting one I’ve been to, but I have to admit you guys have it rough if you’re really fighting off an Apocalypse. Good luck with that, mates.” He gave them a sympathetic look. He quickly squashed that stupid little saving-people urge which was valiantly trying to get his attention. He was absolutely not sticking around to help stop an Apocalypse. No way in...well, hell.

“You’re from another _dimension_?” Sam gaped. Dean merely looked confused. 

“Yup! I must say it’s nice to be believed for once.”

“So you’re not a Trickster?” asked Dean, still confused. 

Harry shrugged. “I honestly have no idea what a Trickster is, so I imagine not.”

Sam nudged Dean with his elbow, his eyes lighting up. “Dude!” he hissed in a low voice that he probably thought wouldn’t carry. “It’s like the comics you used to like, the ones with all those weird multi-verse things and the extra-dimensional magical beings, whatever it was called.”

Dean’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Oh!” he cried. Then, wider and more awed. “Whoa! Holy crap! That shit’s real? You’re actually an extra-dimensional magical being?”

Harry scratched his head and tried to remember Hermione’s lecture about the theory of alternate dimensions. Ron, he remembered, had zoned out right around the word ‘theory’ itself and he, Harry, had stopped listening probably somewhere around the part about ‘linear and non-linear planes of existence’ because Ron’s doodling had been a lot more interesting by that point. He’d tried, he really had, but she’d lost him with ‘potential temporal relativistic anomaly’. “Yeah, sure,” he finally decided, seeing as the description fit him as well as any, all considered. Magical being? Check. Not of this dimension? Check. So, extra-dimensional magical being it was. 

“Wait till I tell Bobby,” Dean enthused with an evil little grin that meant he was up to mischief. 

Sam groaned. “He’ll never believe us.”

“Damn, you’re right. I’m half sure I don’t believe us, either.”

Harry coughed to get their attention. 

“Anyway,” Dean said, “I guess it wouldn’t be too much trouble for something as powerful as you to just, you know, pop over and gank some witches? Better yet, can you just stop the whole Apocalypse?”

Harry got the uncomfortable feeling he was missing some vital piece of information. Again. “Erm…guys, I’m not that powerful.”

Dean sighed. “Yeah, I guess it was too much to hope for, wasn’t it? I mean, you’re not _God_.” He snorted. “Then again...I guess you’re sort of _like_ a god, right?”

Sam scrunched up his brow. “I think that’s how they described it. Honestly, Dean, you read those things way more than I did.”

And somehow, inexplicably, Harry had once more been elevated to the status of ‘god’. Looked like they were back to square one again. He wasn’t even going to bother trying to correct them...again.He looked between the two of them for a few moments longer, by this point not entirely sure what he was looking for. Whatever it was, he didn’t find it. He threw up his hands. “Just tell me what you want, specifically, and I’ll do my best, alright?”

Sam and Dean exchanged looks, then Sam darted out the door and Dean sent him a cocky grin and strolled further inside. “Sooo,” he hedged, looking around the normal room, “think you can conjure up some grub? Like...I could definitely do with a cheeseburger right about now. And some pie. Don’t forget the pie.”

Dean obviously had no idea about the Rules of Conjuration. Harry didn’t have time to give him a lecture. He simply raised his eyebrow and remarked, “What am I, your personal chef?”

Dean shrugged unrepentantly. “It was worth a try.”

Sam burst back into the room, a large map trailing from one hand like a flag in the wind. It flapped about until he slammed it down on the table in the make-shift kitchenette. He spread it out and pointed to a black marker circle. “We’re here.” He pointed to an additional five circles, this time in red marker. “These are the sites of the murders. Unfortunately, we can’t find a connection between the victims, so figuring out who the witch-”

“Or witches.”

“- _or witches_ are is tough.” Sam stopped to shoot his brother a dirty look. “Anyway, if you could find them for us, it would probably save us another hex bag incident…” he trailed off with a shudder. 

“Freakin’ witches,” Dean agreed. 

“Nasty piece of work, those,” Harry also agreed. He glanced over the map thoughtfully. “Well, I’m still not entirely sure what you want me to do without, say, a name, or something belonging to them, or...I’m not all-knowing, you know.”

Neither Dean nor Sam seemed entirely convinced of this. But Sam scrunched his face up in thought, something that made him look remarkably like an adorable puppy - and wasn’t that a scary thought? Harry banished it as quickly as it had come. Down that path lay great danger.  
“What about using the hex bag itself?”

“Dude, he burned it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, _oh_. Kind of the reason you’re not a bloody, stinking, dead corpse right about now!”

“Well, sor-ry Dean, I was a little occupied at the time with, oh, I dunno, being _cursed_?”

“So?”

Sam made such a horribly twisted face, Harry had to look away. In response, Dean snorted. 

Harry asked the ceiling for patience. He also put in a plea to Merlin, Morgana, and Jesus - just for good measure. Finally deciding to ignore the quibbling brothers (for the sake of his already questionable sanity) Harry pulled out the Elder Wand, balanced it over the palm of his hand and stated clearly, “Point me, evil demon-worshipping witches.” To his utter shock, the wand trembled, twitched, then spun to the right and froze, pointing southeast. Sam and Dean also fell silent. Harry looked up. “Well, it’s imprecise, but it will keep pointing to them, all you have to do is follow it. Like a compass.” 

Sam and Dean exchanged glances. Dean wiggled his eyebrows and made a face, so Sam sighed and held out his hand. “Alright, I guess I’ll take it then.”

Harry calmly stuck his wand back up his sleeve and put on his ‘I am not amused’ face. “I don’t think so. I suppose I will have to accompany you.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Why not? Just give us the stick. It’s just a stick.”

Harry definitely wasn’t going to tell them that it was not ‘just a stick’ and was in fact one of the three Deathly Hallows, the fabled Deathstick itself. And that it was a wand. And that in order to perform muggle-science defying acts of mystique, he kind of needed it. Never tell your enemy your weakness. Or your tentative allies, for that matter. Especially not tentative allies who he was quite certain would be more than happy to bury a dagger in his back the moment he turned it. So instead of launching into a naive explanation along the lines of, ‘I’m a wizard, it’s my wand, I need it,’ which is what a complete rookie auror would do, he simply said, “No.” And crossed his arms.

“ _God’s sake!_ ” complained Dean. 

Harry rolled his eyes. Sam nudged his brother with his elbow and bent to whisper in his ear. Harry still heard it anyway. “You never know, having a alien back-up god might come in handy. Especially if we run across any more hex bags or demons.”

Dean snorted. “Who’s to say he won’t turn on us?”

Sam gave Harry a squinty-eyed look of suspicion. Harry sighed. “ _How_ many times must I tell you both that I really have little desire to get involved in this little tête-à-tête you have going on here, but since you’re liable to get yourselves killed if I don’t step in, and because I have an unhealthy hero-complex, I’m going to help. Because I can. And then I’m going to leave. And you will never, ever see me again.”

Sam and Dean (and Harry was beginning to think of them now as SamandDean, like one single entity split into two, kind of like the twin-entity of GredandForge) did another little silent, funny-eyebrow dance before agreeing. And that was how Harry found himself in the back seat of a very old-looking black muscle car which had clearly seen one too many fights. But at which point Dean had threatened him with evisceration (amongst other unpleasant things) if he so much as scratched the interior. 

Harry had used a lot of strange search methods in his time trying to find Sirius. Usually he went with the ‘point-me’ spell as a simple indicator of whether or not there was a wizard named ‘Sirius Black’ living in whatever dimension he happened to find himself in, and in the cases where he landed somewhere a little too close to home, well, that’s when it got more interesting. But driving around in the back of a clunky old black muggle car giving driving instructions to a pair of muggle religious nutbags while they careened around corners and broke about ten different traffic laws? Well, that was a new one. And kind of fun. 

Eventually the point-me spell led them to a fairly respectable neighbourhood lined mostly with bungalows and some two-story, if small, houses facing away from the edge of a forest. The line of trees was ominous and dark, reminding Harry strongly of a certain Forbidden Forest. Even if his spell hadn’t lead them up to the row of houses, he would have been able to tell anyone who asked that someone had been performing some bad spells around those trees. He was getting some seriously nasty vibes. 

“So, that’s the house?”

Harry looked up at the two-story sandwiched between two bungalows. It was ironically painted a buttercup yellow with white trim and a little white-stone path with some impressive shrubbery. Impressive as in some of those plants were definitely not your normal run-of-the-mill muggle garden plants. He bet the back-garden had an even more impressive selection. “That’s the house,” he confirmed. His wand quivered, spun, then pointed to the next-door bungalow. “And that one also has a demon-witch.” Satisfied with itself, the Elder Wand emitted a couple of sparks, spun one more time, and pointed to a house on the opposite side of the street and a couple down. “That one too.” He waited patiently to see if the Wand would do anything else but it merely vibrated a little then went inert. He tucked it away with a quick pat. “Yup, just those three.”

Sam and Dean both stared at him in consternation. “ _Just_ those three? Are you sure there aren’t any more? Maybe the rest on the block while we’re at it?”

Dean really could give some people back home a run for their money on the sarcasm front. “No. Just those three,” he affirmed. 

Sam ran his hand through his hair and groaned. “Great.” Then he suddenly went from annoyed to concerned and asked, “What about demons? Any demons?”

Harry honestly couldn’t say what a demon felt like or whether or not the Elder Wand would be able to pick them up. Then again, this _was_ the Elder Wand. He flicked it into his palm again and intoned, “Point me demons.” The wand spun and settled on the first house. The yellow one. Sam and Dean both looked grim. 

“How many?”

Harry shrugged. He asked his wand, “That it?” An affirmative quiver was his response. “That’s the only house with a demon, or demons. Couldn’t tell you how many.”

Dean wasn’t buying that. He gestured widely. “Can’t you just, I don’t know, _poof_ in there and count, then poof back out?”

“And give ourselves away?” Sam refuted before Harry could even refuse. 

“Okay, fine. So, I’m guessed probably no more than a couple, and we have at least three witches to deal with here, possibly more depending on how many people per house...assuming that they have normal covers as mothers or wives, though, it’s probably just the three, and maybe one demon - possibly possessing the husband.”

“Or a guest.”

“Or a guest. Or immediate family member - kid, maybe.” Dean’s voice went from military to homicidal in the span of a couple of seconds. He growled. “Better not be any kids.”

Sam put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and squeezed. “Whoever it is, we’ll try our best to save them.”

Dean’s resolve hardened into diamond. Harry was impressed. For muggles dealing with the supernatural they really had some commitment. Especially because they were going up against magic with only their hands, brains, and basic muggle weaponry. He supposed he had to applaud their bravery as well. Or their suicidal stupidity. Same difference, really.

“Right,” he said. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it then. Cheers.”

“Wait just a damn minute!” exclaimed Dean as Harry readied himself to apparate back to the location of the Veil’s gate. Harry told himself to ignore the man, just do it - _apparate already, Potter!_ \- but instead, against every fibre of better judgement he possessed, he said, “What?”

“After coming this far, you’re just going to split? I don’t think so. Cover us.”

Harry weighed the pros and cons of this. On one hand he could be walking into some kind of crazy trap, on the other, if he left now, these two muggle men - who he supposed had their hearts in the right place - might die in the process of trying to rescue some kid and stop some murdering dark witches. 

Decisions. Decisions. 

Then again, Harry Potter had never been known for making the most logical, safe decisions. It was really no surprise then, that he said, “Fine,” when he really should have said, “Piss off.” But then, he was Harry Potter, the Saviour, and Hermione was just going to have to deal with it. 

Sam and Dean decided to take on the demon first. Dean went round to the trunk of the car, which, much to Harry’s amusement, had a false bottom, and pulled out several strange items. When he’d collected his fill of water bottles, a pocket bible, a couple of salt canisters, and finally a couple of handguns and a sawed off shotgun, he threw a few to Sam and contemplated Harry for a moment, but ultimately dismissed him. Looking like some kind of Indiana Jones reject, he began making the universal undercover signs for ‘I’ll take the front, you take the back, and you-! Cover him!’ 

Harry followed Sam around the back of the house, feeling like a mother babysitting her two unruly children. He kept his wand just in reach at all times, but otherwise remained calm. A glance over his shoulder right before they turned the corner showed Dean stashing the guns in his waistband and strolling up the path to knock on the door. 

“This is going to go pear-shaped, I just know it,” Sam grumbled under his breath, also watching his brother. He caught Harry’s eye and jerked his head towards the back door. “Come on, he’ll need the backup.” 

Harry didn’t doubt that. Sam and Dean seemed like the kind of people who had Harry’s piss-poor luck at getting into bad situations, but the Devil’s luck getting out of them. 

He let Sam listen in at the back door, instead trying to categorise the various potions-friendly plants in the back garden which definitely shouldn’t have been in an ordinary muggle’s yard. Belladonna, nightshade, hellebore, aconite (otherwise known as wolfsbane, thank you Snape), and vervain were just a few he could name off the top of his head. He was almost impressed. 

He heard the yell and the crash at the same time as Sam and by the time he turned back around, Sam was already ramming the door open with his impressive shoulder width and levelling his gun. Harry followed him inside as he rushed to his brother’s defence and walked in on what had to be the strangest scene yet. Dean, minus one gun, was splayed against a wall, held up by some invisible force, and on the other side was Sam, newly flung, and minus his own shotgun. A gothically dressed teenage girl stood in the middle of the living room, parts of her hair and clothes wet and - strangely enough - _smoking_. It reminded Harry of Pepper-Up Potion. Finally, there was an older woman, looking extremely distraught, straining and clawing against a _third_ wall, the one closest to Harry, and she was babbling something about ‘Audrey’ and ‘No, please’. 

All this he took in within moments. Then Harry noticed the coffee table and his eyebrows went up. Whatever was going on on that table was some serious wiccan voodoo dark magic. Hermione probably would have been able to tell him if the ritual was actually viable, but as far as his knowledge went he knew the pentagram and the cat skull were bad news for invoking curses. 

“Who the fuck are you?”

Harry tilted his head up and was startled to note the teen’s eyes were solid black, no whites. It was the strangest thing, perhaps even more unnerving than Voldemort’s red, snake eyes had been. “Let me guess,” he asked. “Demon?”

Dean grunted, all his neck muscles straining against...something. “Whatever gave it away?” 

The ‘demon’ hissed and flung a few fingers in Dean’s direction, which forced his head to slam back as he slid up the wall a few more inches. 

“Okay,” said Harry, placatingly, “why don’t we all just calm down, let the nice men go, er, and the screaming woman, and we can all sit down, have some tea, and work this out?”

_It was worth a try,_ he decided a second later as the demon’s face twisted into an ugly mask and she flung her hand towards Harry. He had maybe a moment to sense the brief flicker of intent, before a strange wall of pressure slammed into him and flung him back. He hit the wall next to the sobbing woman with a nauseating thud and blinked, momentarily stunned. Then, he tried to move and discovered he could barely twitch his neck and his hands. “Alright,” he said, a little breathless, “I guess that’s a no. Tell me, what kind of magic are you using to do this?”

The demon had stopped paying attention to Sam and Dean (clearly no one cared about the hysterical woman because she was being entirely ignored), and cocked her - its? - head in curiosity. “You...you are different...something about you is…” She closed her eyes, raised her head and inhaled. “You…” she breathed. “You smell of _power_.”

Harry was a little unnerved. That...was just creepy. “Yeah, I’m sure I do. Smell... Wonderful.”He managed to twitch his fingers enough that the Elder Wand sensed his intent and sprung into the palm of his hand. From there, he realised he had a problem because the tip of the wand was pointing up, not out, so instead of trying to curse the demon, he turned the point on himself, and incanted, _“Finite.”_

He honestly hadn’t known if it would work. He suspected, as he felt the demon’s hold on him shudder and loosen, tighten, then finally collapse, that had he been wielding any other wand, the spell would have failed. But the Deathstick was not to be outmatched by any magic - not even demon magic - and it pushed against the demon’s power until it broke and Harry dropped from the wall, landing quickly in a crouch. Before he did anything else, he pulled a shield spell to the tip of his wand, but he needn’t have worried, for the demon staggered back as he broke her hold and cried out, one hand going to her head, as if in pain. She gasped. “Wh-what power is this?” she screeched. “That is not demon magic!”

Harry straightened up warily. The tip of his wand still glowed. “Yes, well, considering I am neither a demon nor one of these demon-witches the brothers here seem so set on killing, that’s hardly surprising.”

The demon spat out a curse and flung her hand again. This time Harry was ready and the force of the demon’s magic met Harry’s transparent shield with a small shockwave which cracked the glass in several picture frames and burst a light bulb.

“What are you!” the demon cried. “You are no angel!”

_Angel?_ Harry thought. _Merlin, is this place for real? Demons and Angels and Apocalypses...what next? The Devil himself?_ “No, definitely not an angel.” He pointed with his free hand, unable to keep himself from quipping, “See, no halo or wings.”

Behind the demon, Sam opened his mouth to say something, but Dean stopped him with a muttered, “Dude, don’t even.” Then he went back to straining against his invisible bonds and actually seemed to make some progress during the demon’s distraction with Harry. 

“ _What. Are. You?”_ the demon spat at him with more venom than Snape had ever managed. 

Harry nodded at Sam and Dean. “According to them I’m a, and I quote, ‘An extra-dimensional magical being’.”

The demon stared at him, at a loss for words. 

“Wow, that’s a first,” Dean admired. 

Sam snorted. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

Harry interrupted them before they could get to quibbling and also before the demon regathered its wits and decided on a new method of attack. “Hey, lads, mind telling me how you normally deal with these demons?”

The demon snarled and started to rant about ‘fucking Winchesters’. She - it - smirked and then declared how she would have the honour of presenting their souls to Lucifer himself (and Harry supposed that answered the question about the Devil, then), but Sam shouted over her whinging voice, “Normally we send them back to Hell by exorcising the demon from the host body with a Latin incantation!”

Harry blinked. Then he peered at the teenager once more and realised something very important. He pointed. “You mean to say that that, there, is a teenage girl who’s being possessed by an evil spirit? And that somewhere in there is a girl, incapable of controlling her own body?” _Like the Imperius Curse! Like when Voldemort possessed me, the bastard…_

“Yes! So you can’t hurt her or when the demon leaves the body she’ll die!”

The demon threw back her head and laughed. “Ha! Like you’re in any position to do anything! I’ve got plenty of meatsuits to pick from around here.” She turned glinting, calculating eyes on Harry. “In fact…” she purred, and the way she licked her lips and eyed him like her next meal sent the warning bells ringing. 

_I have a feeling I won’t like what she’s going to try next. Time to put an end to this. Last time, I drove Voldemort out with positive emotions, so maybe a Patronus Charm will drive this demon out of the girl?_

“No!” Dean tried to throw himself from the wall, but didn’t succeed. “Don’t let her possess you!”

_Oh,_ hell _no._ Harry raised his wand and drew upon every happy memory he had with a vengeance. “ _EXPECTO PATRONUM!”_

The demon flung back her head at the same time and opened her mouth, from which a boiling mass of black smoke began to stream out, like pestilence from the maw of a Nundu, but the moment the shining silver stag burst from the tip of Harry’s wand, glowing so brilliantly it was blinding, the smoke burned away and retreated back into the girl’s mouth. She threw back her head further and screamed such an unholy wail that it nearly broke Harry’s concentration. Annoyed, Prongs snorted, prancing in place, then lowered his antlers and charged. 

The demon had nowhere to go. For a moment Harry was afraid that his Patronus, despite being incorporeal, would impale the girl. For one heart-stopping moment, it actually did, until the tip of the ghostly antler passed straight through her body and instead of blood, it speared a writhing, oily black mass of the darkest, most foul magical presence Harry had ever felt. Impaled upon Prongs’ magnificent, shining antlers, the dark mass thrashed and twisted and pulsed with a high, keening wail that sounded like nails on a chalkboard and breaking glass. Harry flicked his wand, urging Prongs to finish the job. The stag tossed his head, pawed the ground, then suddenly slammed his head down. It was strange to think of smoke being capable of being impaled and squashed, but that’s what happened. It gave one last dying wail, then the brilliance of Prong’s magic finally burned the last of the evil from it and the smoke began to disintegrate in curls of red-hot ash. 

When it was all gone, Harry ended his patronus spell with a sigh of relief, feeling pleased and smug that his idea had worked. The girl, he noticed, was crumpled on the floor, pale but breathing steadily, and Sam and Dean had both fallen in heaps against their respective walls. They both had their arms up, shielding their eyes from the brightness, and only when the light went out did they begin to lower their limbs, blinking like newborn babies at the first sight of the sun. 

“Sorry about that,” Harry said. “It’s a little blinding.” He was having to blink his own spots away, despite it being his own magic. Really, he thought that the Elder Wand had poured just a bit too much power into that patronus in response to the demon. Then again, that’s probably the reason why it had been incapable of surviving once it had been impaled. Harry glanced down at the innocent looking wood stick with an indulgent kind of exasperation. The Elder Wand warmed a little in his hand, but otherwise gleamed inoffensively. 

“Damn, what the hell was that?” gripped Dean as he squinted in the general direction of Harry and the shocked, trembling woman who had pressed herself into a corner in fear. 

“My Patronus,” Harry replied, though he doubted Dean knew what that was, and he wasn’t terribly inclined to elaborate, either. 

“Whatever it was, it was effective. It _killed_ that demon.” Sam paused and exchanged a hesitant look with his brother. “In fact...that white light...it was almost like…” Another exchanged look. 

Harry sighed. Not this again. He really had no desire for another misunderstanding, but then again, his life seemed to be nothing but a series of misunderstandings lately so why bother? In fact, he wasn’t going to bother. He turned around and addressed the woman, deciding that someone really ought to see to her, finally. “Ma’am, I believe that’s your daughter on the floor there? She might require some help…”

The woman gaped at him tearfully. Her lip trembled on the verge of sound. “I…” she gasped and squeezed her eyes shut. “I...I’m s-so s-s-sorry!” She began to hiccup. “It’s all my fault! I’m sorry! Please...please if you must, punish me, not my daughter!” She suddenly flung herself from the corner and onto her knees in front of Harry. She grabbed at his trouser legs pitifully. “P-please! I know you have come to judge us. I know I did wrong. I never meant to hurt Audrey! She’s a good girl, really! I-it was my fault! She n-never did more than a few small spells, I promise! I found out b-before she...before anything worse. It was me who did the rest! Me! And the demon! It was the demon! Oh _please_ …”

Harry could only stare, utterly speechless. He had to admit, this was also a first. He’d never had someone beg for mercy at his feet before, acting like they thought he was some kind of divine judge… _Oh, crap. She thinks I’m an angel._ “Hold up,” he interrupted her quickly before she could launch into more begging. “I already said I’m not an angel.” 

The woman blinked up at him uncomprehendingly. “B-but...i-it was your holy power that destroyed the demon…”

“Say with me: extra-dimensional magical being. Alright?”

More blinking from red-rimmed, glassy eyes. She buried her face in her hands (thankfully releasing his trouser leg). “Oooh, I’m so, so sorry! This is all my fault!”

“Dude, okay, this is getting way out of control.”

Harry acknowledged Dean’s comment with a grateful nod. “Tell me about it.”

“I’m calling Cas.”

Harry began to nod again, before pausing. “Er, sorry?”

“Good idea, Dean,” agreed Sam. “We should have called him from the get go.”

Harry looked between the two brothers and wondered who ‘Cas’ was and why calling him was relevant to their current situation. “Okay, well, while you have a chat, would the other you mind helping me out with...this?” ‘This’ was the weeping, kneeling woman prostrate at his feet, which he indicated with a nervous flicker of his fingers. 

To Harry’s renewed surprise, Dean simply beseeched the ceiling, and called out loud, “Cas! Castiel! We need your help here! Cas? Can you get your feathery butt down-”

Harry nearly jumped at the gravelly, solemn voice that echoed from the doorway to his left. “Dean. I am here.” He turned to stare at the nondescript, brown-haired man wearing a tan trench coat and a serious expression with yet more surprise because, one, he hadn’t heard the normal pop of displaced air that signalled an apparation, and two, how on earth did addressing the ceiling work as a method of communication in this world? 

Things were getting more bizarre by the second. Harry shifted uncomfortably. “Umm…”

“Oh, good, you’re here,” said Dean, who did not look remotely surprised to find trenchcoat-man standing there like he’d been there all along. “Cas, meet, uhh, well - he’s an extra-dimensional magical being who just ganked a demon with something that looked and felt an awful lot like some weird angel holy white light voodoo shit - and uh, dude, meet Castiel, an Angel of the Lord.” The way Dean said ‘Angel of the Lord’ with an amused little grin at the corner of his mouth gave Harry pause. Was he serious or pulling his leg? The woman on the floor moaned as if she were in physical pain, and peeked through her fingers nervously, eyes wide. 

“Excuse me?”

That was all he managed before ‘Castiel’ was suddenly in his face, staring at him unblinkingly, doing a very disturbing impression of a hippogriff. Harry leaned back, on edge. “Excuse you?” he tried again. 

Castiel finally blinked and stepped back. “Sam. Dean. This is most interesting. You appear to have indeed run into someone not of this world. I cannot say for certain whether this man is human or not, but I sense power of a type I have never encountered before, so I believe you may be correct that he is indeed an extra-dimensional magical being.” He furrowed his brow. “How then, would such a being arrive here undetected?”

Harry realised he was being addressed now. He twirled his wand to remind himself he wasn’t without a weapon if this meeting went sour (because dealing with two muggles was one thing, but an angel? He definitely should have split when he had the chance). “The Veil, if you must know. It’s programmed on our side to send me to one of any dimension…” he scratched his head, trying to remember how Hermione had described it in layman’s terms. “Umm...kind of like...scanning on a radio by turning the dial...you never know what station you’re going to get until you tune in, but once you do, you know the station number for next time. Except with the Veil there are infinite stations.” He was a little proud for being able to convey it so succinctly.

Sam and Dean stared at him. Castiel merely looked puzzled. 

“So, you mean it’s like a dimensional Stargate?” asked Sam. 

“I have not heard of this Veil,” said Castiel at the same time, excessively grave. 

Harry looked between the two and sighed. “I have no idea what a Stargate is, so I’m afraid I don’t know.” Dean made a choking noise that sounded an awful lot like ‘Seriously?’ “And it is not surprising that you’ve never heard of the Veil, seeing as you don’t have one in your world, only that our Veil has opened a portal to this one in a specific spot and so long as it remains open I can come and go.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” argued Sam before anyone else could say anything. “I mean, hello, random portal to another world just open for anyone to stumble across?”

Harry gave him an irritated look. “Give me a little credit,” he scoffed. “Of course I set up wards to keep intruders out. No one can enter that portal but me, and I’ll know if anyone tries.”

“Might I take a look at this portal?” asked Castiel with all the air of someone giving an order rather than making a request. 

Harry stared at him. On one hand, this was was supposedly a celestial being (and, if he were being entirely truthful with himself, he knew it to be true merely from the man’s magical presence alone. His power reminded Harry of Fawkes - though more on the scale of a blazing bonfire to Fawkes’ candle) and it might not do to piss off any celestial beings. On the other, Harry had a policy of not revealing the secrets of the Veil. Not to mention what if this Castiel decided he wanted to take a jaunt through the dimensions? He hardly wanted to unleash an angel on Hermione. She’d never let him hear the end of it. 

“Um, what about the witches, dude?”

Castiel glanced at the woman weeping on the floor. “She is properly repentant.” And that seemed to be the end of that. At least until Dean huffed and rolled his eyes and jerked a thumb at the window. 

“ _Dude,_ there are at least two more.”

“They will not go anywhere,” replied Castiel, still with that air of command. He levelled his piercing, unnerving gaze back on Harry. “If you would?”

Harry crossed his arms, tapping his wand against his sleeve. “Would what?”

“Take me to this portal.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Side-long apparation?”

Castiel paused. “I...have not heard of this apparation, but I will be able to follow your presence.”

Harry paused in his tapping. He glanced between the two men and the angel and chewed his lip. “Yeaaah, about that. Not so sure that’s a great idea.”

“I will follow you regardless.”

Sam and Dean exchanged looks and groaned. “Um, Cas, man, maybe you shouldn’t be pissing the dude off.”

Harry ignored them. “I have wards,” he countered. 

“They will not stop me.”

“Are you absolutely positive about that?”

Castiel actually had to stop and think about that. He appeared a little chagrined. “...No.”

From the floor, the woman had fallen silent and was watching the exchange with wide, comical eyes, like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. To be fair, it did seem a bit ridiculous. 

“Okay, okay.” Sam stepped forward, holding up his hands for peace. “Everyone relax. Um, uhhh…” He trailed off, staring at Harry with a slight frown.

“Harry,” Harry offered, realising that he hadn’t actually introduced himself the entire time he’d been in the company of these two men. In his defence, his manners had been promptly forgotten when he’d been salted, watered, knifed, and shot at. 

“Right, _Harry_ , what Cas means to say here is that he would really appreciate if you’d allow him to look at the portal, and he promises he won’t do any funny business, isn’t that right, Cas?”

Harry didn’t think that ‘Cas’ looked all too favourable with this interpretation of his words, but to Harry’s surprise he nodded. It was strange, he mused, how these two seemingly crazy muggle men had an angel in their back pocket. Was that kind of thing normal around here? Judging from the way the other woman reacted, probably not. 

“Very well, I agree to these terms. I would merely like to observe.”

Sam spread his hands. “There, see?”

“Cas has communication issues,” Dean added helpfully. Harry thought Castiel might have shot the man a dirty look at that, but it was hard to tell when he didn’t seem to use a lot of his facial muscles to convey emotion. 

He again contemplated the merits of not pissing off an angel versus keeping to himself. On the off-chance his wards didn’t have the right type of magic to keep out an angel, he’d get stalked back there anyway, so might as well get it over and done with now. He let his hands drop with a sigh. “Oh, fine. Merlin, you people are persistent.”

“Merlin,” began Sam curiously, “you say that like we say ‘god’ or ‘jesus’. Where you come from is Merlin real? Is he your god? Or a god? One of you?”

“Jesus Christ, Sammy, not now,” Dean cut his brother off before he could overwhelm Harry with questions. 

“Er,” said Harry, eloquently. 

“Take me to the portal. Please,” interjected Castiel. 

This was reminding Harry an awful lot of one of those weird sit-com dramas that his Aunt Petunia had liked to watch. The situation and conversation was all as equally ridiculous as what went on in those shows. 

“It’s a valid question,” protested Sam. 

“Totally not important.”

“Well, it’s _interesting_ to know-” began Sam. 

“Okay!” Harry interrupted quickly, holding up his hands. “Shut up. Bloody hell. You people are driving me insane faster than the Cruciatus Curse.” In hindsight, not the smartest thing to say. 

“The Cruciatus-” began Sam with interest. 

“Dude!”

Before Sam and Dean could get into a face-pulling contest, Harry decided to address all the issues and just get it over with. It was like babysitting children! Honestly! He pointed at Dean, “Okay, you, shut up.” His finger jerked to Sam. “You, stop asking inane questions. But yes, Merlin was real, but he’s dead now. But he was extremely powerful so we still invoke his name. And no, I’m not going to show you the Cruciatus Curse. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.” As Sam blinked, he whirled on Castiel. “And _you_ , just follow me if you can and learn to say please and thank you like a normal person, for pity’s sake.” And with that he whirled on his heel and popped away. 

 

***

 

_Peace. Finally._

Once the sensation of being squeezed through a tube had dissipated, Harry took a moment to revel in the silence and stillness of the dark, underground tunnel he had reappeared in. Of course, it lasted all of five seconds before there was the faint sound of fluttering wings and Castiel, Sam and Dean simply blinked into existence several metres down the tunnel from Harry. The angel cocked his head to the side and said, “Interesting. I can sense you still, but there is a barrier of magic which does not want me to cross. I could probably break it, but it would take time and power and bring half the Host down upon us and…” Castiel trailed off at the same time as Harry stopped paying attention to watch as both Sam and Dean’s eyes glazed over and they began to look around, blink, and mutter to themselves. They turned around and began to wander away off down the tunnel. “What are they doing?” Castiel asked in bewilderment. 

Harry couldn’t help but chuckle. Still laughing a little, he pulled out the Elder Wand and silently cancelled the muggle-repelling and notice-me-not wards he’d set around the perimeter of the portal. Sam and Dean immediately halted, shook their heads like dogs shaking off excess water, and whirled back around in tandem, eyes narrowed and angry. “What the hell!” exclaimed Dean. “What the fuck just happened?”

“Some kind of mind trick,” Sam hissed, looking around quickly. 

Harry tried to quell his chuckles, he really did. He cleared his throat and called out, still amused, “It was my wards. They are meant to repel you and confuse you so that you don’t even know the portal is here.” He gestured behind him to a hazy spot near the wall of the tunnel. The only way you could tell the portal was there was by the way the air rippled and distorted. It was a little disorienting, if you stared at it for too long.

“I experienced no such confusion,” Castiel pointed out. “Though I could not previously see the portal. Now I do.”

Harry shrugged. “It’s not meant to work on magical beings of any kind, just the muggles. Sorry, non-magical people. And I cancelled a notice-me-not charm I had up.”

Dean mouthed ‘notice-me-not’ with incredulity. Sam merely looked very interested. Harry had a feeling that if he and Hermione ever got together, you’d have to pry them apart with a _repulso_ charm. Yet another reason to keep the two brothers well away from the portal. 

“That is most interesting. Again, if I put more power into it, I could likely override these wards…”

Harry knew the angel was challenging him, despite the clinical tone of his voice. He snorted and twirled his wand thoughtfully. “Yes, well, they aren’t the most powerful of wards out there. Just charms, really. I could make them much more powerful if I were so inclined.” There. That should have sounded appropriately intimidating. It wouldn’t do for this angel to get any ideas. He honestly didn’t want to find out which of them would prevail in a fight.

The angel, Cas, tilted his head in consideration. “Perhaps,” he stated after some deliberation. “I am far from the strongest of my brothers and sisters.”

Despite Cas’s claims to ‘merely observe’, Harry really would rather not see where this all was going. Like, say, a pissing match with the Heavenly Host. Yeah, no thank you. 

Perhaps Sam and Dean were smarter than they acted, because Dean stepped forward and exclaimed, “O-kay! As nice as this whole ‘mine is bigger than yours’ powers pissing contest you’ve got going on _is_ , I’d rather not find out the hard way, so-”

“Let’s just discuss this rationally,” Sam finished, hands raised in supplication. He nodded at the portal. “Basically, there’s a portal to another dimension. You-” he pointed at Harry “currently have it under lock and key. Cas, here, is concerned that someone might be able to sneak by. Did I miss anything?”

“Uh, nope, sounds about right to me,” his brother drawled. 

“It’s _fine_ ,” Harry barked in annoyance. “Even if someone here could get past my wards, I’d know about it long before they broke through and stop them. Worst case scenario, my friend on the other side would blast whoever came out of the other end who wasn’t _me_ to itty bitty pieces.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis. “Bam.”

Dean looked mildly sick. “Nice,” he said, faintly. “Okay, excellent. Cas, satisfied?”

Cas furrowed his brows at the portal. “No, I am not-” he began.

“Well it’s not really any of your _business_ , is it?” Harry snapped, cutting him off. “And it will cease being your business the minute I step through and close it down.” He spread his arms and gestured mockingly. “This world is not my world and frankly, I have absolutely no desire to ever return.”

“And the others?” Cas demanded, voice darkening threateningly. 

Sam and Dean glanced between them like they were settling in for a long ping-pong match. 

“Others? What others?” Harry thought maybe now would be a good time to simply...go. 

Cas waved a hand vaguely at the portal. “If you have access, how many others have access? Who else may decide they wish to “pay us a visit”?” he sneered, raising his fingers to drag them through the air in a facsimile of quotation marks. Harry would have been amused if he weren’t so irritated. Beyond irritated. 

“Will-” he began. 

“Your portal and your people pose a great risk to this world,” Cas continued on, as if Harry had never opened his mouth. “And even worse if Lucifer learns of this and of the power of your people. It cannot be risked-”

“Alright!” Harry cut in, loudly, and utterly fed up. “Merlin’s pants, keep your knickers on!” Both Sam and Dean startled. Dean snickered. Harry ignored them both. “Look,” he said, grimly, “no one else has access to the portal, and even if they did, there are _infinite_ worlds out there, why would anyone want to come to this one? Especially since it’s in the middle of a bloomin’ apocalypse! Finally, even if they _did_ want to come to this world - and that’s assuming they somehow, mysteriously, became aware that it existed, because frankly I’m the only one who _is_. Me and my friend, Hermione, who only cares about this from a researcher’s perspective, so she won’t be bothering you. _Anyway,_ even if someone did want to come here, only Hermione has the right frequency to open the Veil to this particular dimension and her notes are so coded and protected it’s like bloody Azkaban-”

“Azka-what now?” Dean asked. 

“Bloody Buckingham Palace, the White House, insert-whatever-insanely-fortified-building you can think of!” Harry finished, voice raised, arms gesticulating and hair crackling with the force of his upset magic. 

Cas merely blinked at him shrewdly. “Hmmm. Very well.”

“Now, if you don’t mind, _good bye-”_ Harry began, all too read to go home and never return. 

Sam scrambled forward, hands outstretched. “Wait! Wait, please! We…” he hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at his brother and their irritating angel friend. He turned ridiculously pleading puppy dog eyes onto Harry and Harry nearly choked from the force of it. That should not be legal. “We’re running on a whole of luck and bullshit right now, and the fact that we’re even still managing to keep ourselves alive, and the world from imploding is kind of a miracle...and, just, we could use all the allies we can get. Especially powerful ones-”

Harry held up a hand, a sigh escaping before he could stop it. “Look, chaps, gents, I’d love to help, really, but-”  
“Great!” Dean chirped, mouth quirking slyly. 

Harry narrowed his eyes. “ _But_ ,” he continued pointedly, “I’ve got things to do, and other worlds to explore, and I really don’t fancy sticking around for an apocalypse, if it’s all the same to you, so...good luck, and thanks, but no thanks.”

Sam bit his lip. Cas cocked his head to the side consideringly. He hadn’t blinked since the last time he’d spoken. 

“What about a way to contact you? Just...just in case?” Sam ventured after a moment. 

Harry, who had taken a few decisive steps backwards towards his ticket home, paused. 

There actually _was_ a way. He and Hermione had invented it after they’d realised that if _Harry_ was dimension hopping...who’s to say Sirius hadn’t figured out how to do the same? And if someone from one of the world’s he’d already visited ran across him, and Harry had already ruled them out, or if Harry’s spells hadn’t been working properly and he’d written off a world that was actually the right one...well, people needed a way to get into contact with him and get his attention. Searching the worlds for Sirius wasn’t going to work if he was constantly worrying about whether he needed to backtrack and double-check already visited worlds. Bloody thing was a long shot at best, anyway. Only reason they were doing it at all, was because Hermione (with permission from the Department of Mysteries) couldn’t pass up the opportunity for the research. Harry was mostly just along as the test dummy. 

So, he and Hermione (and several Unspeakables) had invented a spell that used common ingredients that should be found on most worlds, plus a token from Harry that, combined, would trigger the residual magic from the Veil’s dimensional rift and send a kind of...magical pulse that would alert someone on Harry’s side of things. Hopefully. That was the theory at least. 

Something must have shown on his face - maybe it was the hesitation, or maybe it was just that Harry had a terrible poker face when he was feeling guilty, but either way, Dean picked up on it, because he strolled forward, hands in his pockets, and declared, “There is, isn’t there?”

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. 

“Please?” Sam wheedled. 

Cas shifted from one foot to the other, frowning. “Sam, Dean, I do not know if-”

“Can it, Cas,” Dean snapped. “You tellin’ me you’d rather go this shit alone, when we’ve got the change to pick up some super-awesome alien powerhouse as a potential ace in the hole? Hell no.” He pointed at Harry. “You, contact info.”

Harry was a terrible, no-good, awful bleeding heart. He really was. Hermione was going to kill him. Honestly, this time. This was of course after she brow-beat him into shame and guilt for being a bleeding heart and giving away his modified galleons like they were free Wheezes. 

And yet despite all these thoughts of future fratricide (on Hermione’s part, not his), instead of his legs taking him towards the portal, they carried him towards the trio of suicidal idiots. Despite that his mouth _should_ have said, “No, piss off. I’ve already fought one apocalyptic war, I don’t need another on my plate, especially when I barely even know you from Jack,” instead it said, “Don’t you bloody well think I’m going to come at your beck and call like some kind of pet wizard.”

Because despite that it was probably worse than that one decision to infiltrate Azkaban in that _one_ world where...well, it had been a bad decision - so despite that giving away one of his limited supply of galleons was probably one of his poorer life choices, Harry couldn’t help but see himself in Sam and Dean’s tired, determined eyes. He couldn’t help but wonder how nice it might have been had someone come along and offered him the Horcruxes on a silver platter. And despite that he’d known these two jokers for less than twenty-four hours, there was just something about them that kicked his dumb saving-people complex into high gear. 

After all, Lucifer sounded quite a spot more difficult to deal with than Voldemort. He could sympathise, he really could. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sam assured him. 

Harry blinked, realising that _yes_ , he’d actually pressed a gold coin into Sam’s eager hands, and _yes_ , he’d told him to only call in an emergency. What, like _Harry_ was some sort of wonder-wizard? Like he could make a difference?

Well, if their rate of success was anything like the demons, and if this Lucifer bloke was anything as powerful as the angel Cas, then he supposed having someone with a Deathstick up their sleeve and lots of battle experience, probably _could_ tip the scales in favour of Team Good Guys. 

In its resting place up his sleeve, the Elder Wand shivered in agreement. 

“How does it-” Dean began.

“Change the letters and numbers on the rim of the coin to, uh, hold on…” Harry dug inside his jacket for his journal, and flipped it to his latest entry. World #37. Had it really been 37 worlds already? Goodness. “Right, you’ll want to change them to...can you remember? Right, p-a-d-f-o-o-t-3-7.” Hermione’s code. It was supposed to tell him which world frequency to access. 

“P-a-d-foot...pad foot? What?” Dean mumbled. 

Harry didn’t bother dignifying that with a response. 

“So, that’s all?” Sam inquired sceptically. 

Harry rolled his eyes. “Of course not. You need to make a potion and drop it in after you’ve inputted the code.” 

Two sets of eyebrows rose. Cas, meanwhile, nodded. “Of course, to activate the latent magic of the coin. Also, I presume, to ensure that only those who have been instructed in its use will be able to do so, and therefore avoid being summoned by unsavoury beings.”

“Er,” said Harry. 

“Potion?” Sam reminded him, none too patiently. 

Harry quickly rattled off the basic ingredients. The hardest thing was coming up with a list of universal plants or ones that could be easily substituted if the world didn’t have them. Fortunately, of all the worlds he’d visited, not a single one _hadn’t_ had most of the common muggle plants he was listing. Neither Winchester seemed to bother to write it down, though Harry wondered if they would later. Even when he went through the simple steps to brewing the potion. Cas listened with rapt, but creepy attention, and he got the impression that the angel had a mind like a steel trap. 

“Don’t make me regret this,” he added, when he was done. 

Somehow the innocent looks on Sam and Dean’s faces, and the stoic one on Cas’s, did not do an awful lot to reassure Harry. 

He sighed. “ _Now_ can I go?”

As Harry was cheerfully waved off, Cas’s eyes continually boring into his back as he pulled out his wand to release the warding spells he had right across the actual entrance to the portal, he felt a shiver of unease work its way down his spine. It was the kind of foreboding unease he had every time he was about to step in some heaping pile of dragon dung, and he had the feeling he was going to sorely regret giving the muggles Sam and Dean Winchester a way to contact him. 

As the portal closed behind him, and Harry stepped back out in the Death Chamber at the Department of Mysteries, where Hermione sat, scribbling away at her desk with a half-eaten sandwich and a welcome-back smile slowly spreading across her face, he did what he always did when faced with future catastrophe - placed it firmly on the back burner, to be dealt with as it came. 

Maybe he’d see the Winchesters again, maybe not. For now, he was home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Right, well, there it is. A bit anti-climactic, but oh well. I'm bad at ending things. Also edited this at stupid o'clock in the morning while on pain meds, so may or may not have missed some massive typo or bad prose (to be fair, most of this is Bad Prose. I like to think I'm funny. I'm not so sure I succeed. Oh well.) If anyone has anything to point out, please, be my guest.
> 
> EDIT: So, um, I made [this post](http://cayleyjll.tumblr.com/post/108797884106/so-there-i-was-all-casual-like-surfing-for-some) on [my Tumblr](http://cayleyjll.tumblr.com) about this fic. So, if you search for works that include both the HP and SPN fandoms right, there are currently (as of posting this fic) 666 works. And...this fic was number _666_. It's a sign. 
> 
> That is all.


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